Guardians

Chapter 19: "A Change of Scenery"

The rest of the night was uneventful. My friend spent the night on the couch, and we followed his example by sleeping ourselves. We were about to eat some breakfast when he walked in. I could tell even from not getting up from the table how pale and green his gaunt face looked.

"What happened?" he mumbled, holding his head up with the door frame. His face suddenly turned greener.

"Bathroom's that way," Kari pointed to the door. With great effort and to our relief, he succeeded in ambling to the bathroom without any mess to clean up.

"Poor guy," I said. "Too bad he wasn't allergic to onions."

Just then a soft knocking on the door was audible. Kari, despite her exhaustion, sprung out of her chair and prepared to answer the door cheerfully. Instead, empty air greeted her.

"Stupid ding-dong ditchers," I could hear her mutter underneath her breath, but she didn't close the door. I noticed that she picked up something before returning to the table. She tossed it casually to me.

"Looks like another note," she said, confirming my suspicions. I felt a little guilty opening the letter without my friend, but I knew he couldn't read anything with the hangover he had.

" 'Guardians,

Your next assignment will be detailed when you arrive. Take the 8:28 am Delta flight to O'Hare airport. You will be approached by a man who will identify himself as a member of the Brethren. Follow his instructions. Your friend Remus Lupin will remain in custody until you are finished'." Again, like all the other notes, it was unsigned.

"O'Hare?!" Kari cried out suddenly. "That's in Chicago! I'm going home!" With a whoop she leapt up and started to dance around the room. I was content just to watch amusingly, but then she grabbed my hands and pulled me up. Together we danced, or rather, she dragged me about. I was about to collapse to the floor laughing when I noticed that my friend was standing in the doorway again.

"Isn't it great?!" Kari yelled exuberantly as she detached from me and shook my friend's shoulders wildly. "We're going to Chicago! I'm going to see my parents again!!"

"That's wonderful..." my friend managed to mumble before beating a hasty retreat back to the bathroom.

It turned out that none of us had ever flown in a plane before, so we were all pretty nervous. My friend had sobered up with time, despite all the methods that Kari said were "foolproof." Those included cold showers, coffee, headstands, and even an anti-nausea spell, which had the opposite effect on him. Luckily all the aftereffects had worn off by the time we boarded the plane. We had been forced to undergo strict security measures. They had even checked our wands for "insects", and we had a hard time explaining the beaten up sword in our luggage. We had checked through without further problems, fortunately, and now we found our seats.

"Excited that we're going to Chicago, Kari?" I asked, hoping I wouldn't get the same reaction as before.

"Are you kidding?!" she said, beaming.

"Where do your parents live?" my friend interrupted before Kari could bounce up and down in her seat in excitement.

"We used to live in Evanston," she replied, "but that was a long time ago, almost five years. I was thirteen when I was taken. Who knows where they could be now?"

"We'll help you find them when we aren't working," I said, noticing the downwards note in her voice. My friend nodded in agreement.

"What's your school like?" I asked to change the subject. Her demeanor brightened slightly.

"We have a joke about our school," she said. "It's called the Chicago Academy of Wizardry, or CAW for short. The seal has a raven on it, to represent wisdom, I guess, but it looks like a crow. So our rivals in Madison call us scarecrows. That's okay, though, because we call them cheese-heads for all the dairy products from Wisconsin." We laughed, and I suddenly noticed that we were in the air.

"Well, I guess we didn't die on takeoff," my friend joked. He was back to his own self, at last.

"Wanna play cards?" I asked, holding up a new deck of muggle cards.

"I'm in," Kari responded, turning towards me.

"Not me," my friend answered as he rolled over. "It's an eight hour flight, and I plan on sleeping through most of it." Almost instantaneously he was snoring. We giggled at him as I shuffled.

"So what do you want to play?" I asked, accidentally dropping some of the cards mid-shuffle.

"Let's do fortune-telling!" Kari said as she grabbed the deck from me. "Am I a girl?" she asked the cards. She flipped over one card, a diamond. "All right, red is yes and black is no."

"What do you do? Ask the cards yes or no questions? It won't be very accurate... they're not wizard cards," I added softly.

"I know," she replied, "but it's just for fun. Now, are we going to have fun in Chicago?" Kari flipped over a card, the two of spades. "Figures..."

"Are we even going to make it to Chicago?" I asked, giggling. This time it was a jack of clubs.

"Will we crash into the Atlantic and die in a fiery grave?" Kari laughed, and it was the ten of hearts. "Well, Rose, it's been nice knowing you."

"Are you lying?" I remarked, referring to the cards. Kari flipped the card; the six of diamonds could be seen.

"Should we even listen to you?" Kari cried out between chortles, and the cards answered with a five of spades. This went on for a half-hour or so, and by the end of four hours, we must have played all of the card games in the world, wizard or muggle, at least twice. We spent the rest of the time talking or sleeping. It took forever to reach the U.S., let alone Illinois. We all woke up when the captain announced some "minor turbulence." At the same time, the plane began to rock back and forth wildly.

"Some 'minor' turbulence?!" Kari cried as we were jostled in our seats. "A two-year-old could fly a broomstick better than this!"

"Hey, not everyone are wizards here!" my friend hissed at her in warning. A particularly nasty bump would have sent me flying if I wasn't buckled in.

"Oh my God, I don't wanna die!" Kari cried out in panic. "Please land this plane, I don't wanna die, land this plane NOW!!" Many people in earshot turned their heads at her, but she was too busy having an anxiety attack to notice. Eventually the turbulence vanished, and we had no further problems until we landed in Chicago. I had never seen such a busy, crowded place before. Of course it was a long wait in line for "security reasons," and all of our belongings (and ourselves) were scanned once again. The sword had presented some problems, but when my friend explained that it had been "in the family for generations," they passed it to the next checkpoint without any further suspicions. Finally we were outside in the Chicago summer air.

"Whew!" my friend breathed, droplets of sweat glistening on his face already. "It's hot and sticky out here"

"We never had weather like this at home," I added.

"What can I say?" Kari smiled benignly at us. "Home sweet home!"